UK police knew of phone hacking back in 2002

Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press

October 20, 2011

LONDON - British police knew that Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid had hacked into the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler nine years before the scandal over the practice exploded, an English chief constable said Thursday.

The revelation raises new questions about whether police deliberately overlooked evidence of illegal behavior at the News of the World for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with it and other papers in Murdoch's media empire.

In a letter to lawmakers disclosed Thursday, Surrey Police Chief Constable Mark Rowley acknowledged that his force knew as far back as April 2002 that someone working for the News of the World had accessed Dowler's voice mail, an act that gave false hope to the missing teen's family and could potentially have interfered with the investigation into her high-profile disappearance.

No one prosecuted

Rowley acknowledged that no effort had been made to prosecute anyone at the paper over the spying and that the information about the phone hacking was not passed on until earlier this year. He said an inquiry team "is currently looking into why this was the case."

Although former journalists say that the practice of hacking into people's phones to score scoops was common across British tabloids in the early 2000s, the spying didn't come into the public eye until 2006, when the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman was arrested for eavesdropping on members of the British royal household.

The News of the World long insisted that the practice had been limited to a single rogue journalist - but its explanation unraveled as evidence emerged that the hacking had been systematic across the tabloid. Public anger at the News of the World grew, and the scandal boiled over after the Guardian newspaper revealed that the tabloid had hacked into Dowler's phone at a time when her family hoped she might still be alive.

Britons outraged

The girl's remains were found months later. Former nightclub bouncer Levi Bellfield was found guilty of her murder in June.

The idea that a tabloid would violate the privacy of a murdered 13-year-old - and potentially derail one of the country's most important missing persons investigation - revolted Britons and led to a crippling advertising boycott. So strong was public outrage that Murdoch closed the 168-year-old paper in July and flew to Britain to apologize to the Dowler family. News Corp.'s newspaper arm says it's attempting to negotiate a settlement with the Dowlers.

But those moves have failed to stem the scandal, which has claimed several News Corp. executives, torpedoed a multi-billion-pound satellite broadcasting deal, and dealt a blow to Murdoch's influence.

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